Sunday, March 22, 2009

Sleep sex or sexsomnia is a form of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) parasomnia (similar to sleepwalking) that causes people to engage in sexual acts while they are asleep. The proposed medical diagnosis is NREM Arousal Parasomnia - Sexual Behaviour in Sleep, and is considered to be a distinct variant of sleepwalking/confusional arousals (ICSD 2).

Symptoms

The first research paper that suggested that sexual behavior during sleep may be a new type of parasomnia was published in 1996 by three researchers from the University of Toronto (Dr. Colin Shapiro and Dr. Nik Trajanovic) and the University of Ottawa (Dr. Paul Fedoroff) [1]. Later, several papers were published describing the problem and suggested that problematic forms of sleep sex are medically treatable "conditions" (see external links). The condition was defined in a paper called "Sexsomnia — A New Parasomnia?" published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in June 2003. The first doctor to coin the term "Sleep sex" was Dr. David Saul Rosenfeld, a neurologist and sleep doctor from Los Angeles, California.

In some cases, sufferers are aware of their behavior for a long time before they seek help, often because they lack information that it is a medical disorder or for fear that others will judge it as willful behavior rather than a medical condition. However, the reality of sexsomnia has been confirmed by sleep disorder researchers who have made polygraphic and video recordings of patients with the condition while they are asleep and observed unusual brain wave activity during the episodes similar to that experienced in other NREM arousal parasomnias. It is a mind/body disconnect that occurs during sleep. The treatment has commonalities with other NREM parasomnias, and also involves specific interventions. By avoiding precipitating factors and ensuring a safe environment, the condition could be brought to a high level of control with minimal effort.

Sexsomnia is not always problematic or extreme for those who experience it or for their partners. There is a great variety in both the frequency and levels to which people are affected by this disorder.

FAIRFAX - A Fairfax County school bus attendant charged with sexually molesting a little boy was released from jail on bond Thursday, outraging the community where the alleged assault took place.

Thirty-one-year-old _____ spent her life around children, working for the past five and a half years as a Fairfax County school bus attendant. She also worked as a babysitter, caring for an 8-year-old boy she allegedly sexually abused at a Manassas mobile home park.

"A child doesn't have no choice, you know, and being 8-years-old [and] by a woman. I mean that's odd," said David Kiger, a father.

Two weeks ago the child, now 10, told his mother about an incident in the summer of 2007 when _____ sexually molested him. The mother promptly went to police and for a week and a half _____ was behind bars in the county detention center.

"I think it is not right that she tried to harm a child, but you know, I believe a person is innocent until proven guilty," said Bill Mentzer, a parent.

Meanwhile, the alleged victim's mother and other parents in this community say _____'s alleged offense is so serious she should not have been released before her trial.

"If it was my child I would kill her. That's is messed up. Anybody who molests a child, they need to be locked up and put away forever," said Anita Cook, a parent.- And then you'd be in prison for a long time, and any other child would be without their mother!

Fairfax County Schools put _____ on leave when she was charged, pending the outcome of her trial.

Mr. Chairman and members of the sub-Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify and submit this statement for the record. Until recently, I served as director of the Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART) Office in the Depart of the Justice. Prior to my appointment, I prosecuted child homicide and child sexual abuse cases for over a decade at the San Diego District Attorney’s Office. In have tried over 120 jury trials as a prosecutor, and have a 92% success rate. Additionally, I served as a senior attorney for the National District Attorney’s Association’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse for 5 years where I trained front line child abuse prosecutors, police, doctors, first responders and others on how to investigate and prosecute child homicide (including shaken baby syndrome cases) and child physically and sexual abuse cases. After leaving NDAA, I established a consulting firm, the National Institute for the Training of Child Abuse Professionals (NITCAP), and continued to train frontline child abuse professionals in the United States and around the world.

In short, I have dedicated my entire professional career to protecting children, and holding perpetrators accountable.

Protecting children is not a partisan, or political issue. It is simply the right thing to do. The Adam Walsh Act, which I had the privilege to help implement, is part of a larger framework in our country to protect children. It is not the only law designed to protect children, nor is it the most important law, but it is sound public policy. It should be supported by this body, financially and otherwise. Like many laws, it is not perfect, and there is room for improvement.

The Adam Walsh Act was signed into law on July 26, 2006. Since that day, there has been much progress throughout this nation in the implementation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). However, the momentum with which this progress is being made stands to be undermined if special-interest groups’ and individual jurisdiction’s myopic criticisms of the law is allowed to change the statutory language of SORNA. Individuals who do not have a national perspective do not understand the significance of the jurisdiction-specific modifications they seek.

Congress intended to give this country and its citizens a comprehensive system for sex offender registration and notification under SORNA. SORNA recognized that every jurisdiction is unique, with distinct systems and issues, and SORNA provides significant flexibility that will allow for the comprehensive nature of the Act to be achieved, while still requiring jurisdictions to meet or exceed equivalent minimum standards.

Modification to SORNA will not resolve all hurdles to substantial implementation. Modifications to SORNA will create new and different issues. As the SMART Office currently does, each jurisdiction must be worked with individually to achieve success in a unique way.

The facts show that sex offender registration and a public registry are highly valued by the public. In Calendar Year 2008, NSOPW had nearly 5 million users and over 772 million sex offender files were accessed. Currently SORNA provides a comprehensive system that gives our children and families access to the same minimum level of information regardless of where they choose to live, work and go to school. SORNA was created because of the fact that sex offenders do reoffend. It was never intended to reduce recidivism rates—because only sex offenders themselves can change this statistic. SORNA and the public registry are intended to allow families and individuals to inform themselves regarding which sex offenders, both adult and serious juveniles offenders lurks in their communities and, based on this knowledge, to allow for informed decision making to occur. SORNA is about accountability.

This statement will focus on three issues:

the challenge to achieve SORNA compliance

flexability for jurisdictions within SORNA, and

the resources that are needed to fully achieve SORNA’s vital purpose.

1. SORNA compliance is challenging but achievable and on-track. Currently, no jurisdiction has met substantial compliance. However, this does not mean that SORNA, as currently constituted, is too burdensome or unachievable. All this indicates is that the deadline for compliance has not yet arrived.

Congress set July 27, 2009, as the initial compliance date. It also built in two one-year extensions, extending the final deadline into July 2011. When I left office in January 2009, several jurisdictions had been working quickly and were extremely close to achieving substantial compliance years in advance of the final deadline. Numerous jurisdictions had already demonstrated enough progress to be granted an extension. Information on the SMART Office website reveals that several more jurisdictions have been granted since my departure.

The reality is that jurisdictions still have two years and four months to substantially comply with SORNA. The Final National Guidelines on Sex Offender Registration and Notification were only published July 1, 2008. Dozens of jurisdictions have already submitted new or amended legislation, compliance packages, tiering structures, extension requests and other items for review to the SMART Office. Jurisdictions will work within whatever time frame is available. Extending the current time line will assure that many jurisdictions will delay in the process of substantial implementation. The issue of the necessity for an additional extension in addition to the two already provided for in SORNA is not yet ripe.

The Attorney General is responsible for determining substantial compliance by the jurisdictions with SORNA, and that duty was delegated to the SMART Office. Prior to my departure from SMART, I was working with the Office of General Counsel to put into formation the establishment of a formal appeals process for jurisdictions which disagreed with compliance decisions. During my tenure, we resolved all issues through simple discussion. I expect that this informal and pragmatic process will continue over the next two years until most or all jurisdictions are compliant.

As a practical matter, the term substantial compliance means just that; complying with the minimum standards as required by SORNA. It does not, and has never in practice, meant total compliance. States such as Louisiana, whom I had the privilege of working with, have held an unreasonable and incorrect understanding of “substantial compliance.” To “substantially comply” with SORNA, at jurisdictions, at minimum must require persons convicted of offenses included under SORNA to register in accordance with the minimum standards set by SORNA.

Further, Congress included in SORNA a method to resolve any conflicts that might exist between SORNA and a jurisdiction’s constitution. Prior to my departure, only two jurisdictions had submitted potential conflicts to the SMART Office, and upon thorough review, neither met the requirements for relief under SORNA.

2. SORNA offers significant implementation flexibility to jurisdictions. The statutory language of SORNA, with respect to certain sections was initially somewhat inflexible. Through the Final Guidelines, I resolved many problematic issues and built in greater flexibility to the system. The SMART Office received over 650 pages of comments to the Proposed Guidelines. Those comments were quite helpful and instructive. The open comment period, and the feedback we got during that timeframe, guided us in the drafting of the Final Guidelines. As a frontline child abuse prosecutor, I know how important it is for guidelines and regulations to assist practitioners, not hinder them.

Of all of the issues, the most common refrain we heard during the public comment period to the proposed guidelines was the requirement that juvenile sex offenders register. Congress originally wrote the juvenile registration requirement to include registration of adjudicated juveniles 14 years or older who committed acts of rape, sexual acts against unconscious or intoxicated individuals and sexual conduct against children under 12 years old. As written by Congress, this section was highly problematic and did not make sense to many jurisdictions and other stakeholders. I found the provision particularly troubling. The comments provided during the publication of the proposed guidelines echoed the same concerns. Working within the confines of the law, I worked to ensure that the Final Guidelines allow jurisdictions complete discretion regarding registering juveniles who engage in low end “consensual” sexual conduct against children under age 12. Now, only older juveniles who are forcible rapists and the like are mandatory registrants under SORNA.

Congress wisely provided jurisdictions complete discretion to not register statutory rape type offenders. Cases involving participants are at least 13 years old with a partner not more than 4 years older are not required to register under SORNA’s registration scheme. If consensual sexual activity does occur between partners with more than 4 years of separation, then prosecutors have several options: charge the case as a felony qualifying as a tier II offense under SORNA; charge the case as a misdemeanor;, or decide not to file the case. In many cases, the best result from a local prosecutor exercising wise discretion is not to file a case in the first case. SORNA does not require any prosecutor to file any case. In most cases, when charged most severely, the offender would be no more than a tier two- type offender, but often a tier one offender and therefore not necessarily required to be on a public registry.

Another example is the clean-record example. The clean record exception allows tier one and adjudicated juvenile tier three sex offenders to discontinue their registration obligations after successfully completing four criteria as set out in the statutory language of SORNA. As written, SORNA seemed to require mandatory implementation by individual jurisdictions. Because some jurisdictions that have registration systems that far exceed the minimum requirements of SORNA, mandatorily requiring implementation of this exception would cause some jurisdictions to completely overhaul their already well functioning registration systems. Clearly SORNA’s intent was to allow great flexibility to the jurisdictions and not force already well functioning systems to revamp. Through the Final Guidelines, we made sure to give those jurisdictions far greater discretion and flexibility.

A final example is SORNA’s recordkeeping requirement. SORNA appropriately requires all information be collected in a digital format or be digitally linked. Many jurisdictions balked at the expense of reacquiring all existing finger and palm prints in digital format. After consulting numerous subject matter experts, we afforded jurisdictions the flexibility to simply scan existing ink prints, allowing them to avoid the significant costs of purchasing live scan systems to achieve the same goal. This decision was made for two reasons; first, it was good policy; and two, this decision can significantly reduce the costs jurisdictions, such as Californias’ claim they must shoulder in order to be in substantial compliance.

These are just a few of the myriad examples of the flexibility that we built into the Final Guidelines. As these examples demonstrate, SORNA, as it is being implemented, is far from the inflexible system that its critics paint it to be.

However, there is a significant hurdle to substantial implementation that can be solved by Congress: the lack of funding.

Congress should provide resources to support the jurisdictions and the SMART Office in their ongoing efforts.

3. My final point is that although SORNA is affordable, far more resources are needed to achieve its promise. During my tenure, the SMART Office created, paid for, and provided a secure communication portal system to all 253 SORNA registration jurisdictions to allow full compliance with SORNA for immediate communication and sharing of information. On January 20, 2009, we made available to relevant jurisdictions the Tribal and Territory Sex Offender Registry System (TTSORS), which provides each tribe and territory an individual digital sex offender registry fully connected to the NSOPW. In only a couple of months, tribes have embraced this opportunity and approximately 35 tribes are currently testing the software and three tribes have requested to be connected to the system. We created an automated community notification system to allow for proactive notification to the public when sex offenders register in a community, the ability to conduct an email address search, a several mile radius search map where sex offenders live, work and go to school and we renovated the NSOPW. We did this all with a limited amount of staff and money; imagine what we could have been achieved with adequate resources.

Another controversial issue is the retroactivity of SORNA. Congress intended SORNA to provide a national blanket of comprehensive standards. The only way to achieve this goal is to require all sex offenders who are currently active in the legal system to be required to register. Blindly excluding all sex offenders convicted prior to July 2006 would significantly impact SORNA’s effectiveness. The United States Supreme Court has determined that retroactivity is constitutional, as it regulatory and is not a punitive measure.

To clarify how the retroactive component works, SORNA does not require jurisdictions to proactively seek out sex offenders that have completed their registration requirements and that are not currently registering or on some type of criminal supervision (parole/probation). Only sex offenders currently registering, who are currently being supervised or who are convicted of another crime are captured under SORNA requirements. The retroactivity issue, though controversial now, will ultimately fade away as more sex offenders receive convictions post implementation.

SORNA does not control where a sex offender lives, works or goes to school. It has nothing to do with residency restrictions which are all the result of state and local legislation.

There is no workable alternative to a system like SORNA. SORNA is an evidence-based system that requires registration based on the fact that the sex offender has ALREADY been convicted of assaulting a real person. There is a movement afoot however, to remove the evidence based component of SORNA and replace it with a soft (and unproven) artifice called “risk assessments.” Congress wisely recognized that risk assessment tools should not used to determine if a convicted sex offender should register---by guessing whether they will re-offend. Rightly so, Congress recognized that risk assessments are not foolproof and are not useful for juveniles. However, “risk assessment” tools remain available for treatment purposes. Currently, only a minority of jurisdictions use them for registration purposes, and it should remain that way for good reason. For one reason, besides the obvious (they are not reliable) there are an insufficient amount of trained professionals available to appropriately administer risk assessment tools to all the sex offenders in the United States.

SORNA is a strong law. It is part of the tool kit that child abuse professionals need to protect children. It provides for a standardized minimum level of sex offender registration and notification throughout the United States. SORNA is not meant to be a panacea for sexual abuse, assault, rape and sexual murders. It is meant to and does provide information that allows parents and others to make informed decisions regarding adult sex offenders and serious juvenile sex offenders who reside, work and go to school in their communities. The amount of use of the NSOPW demonstrates that the public has embraced the type of knowledge and information that SORNA provides.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide my thoughts, and I am eager to work with the Congress on this important issue in the future in any way I can be of assistance.

Just look at the BS statistics in this flier (below), which is in some police stations in Tennessee! I've emailed them about where they found these BOGUS statistics, but, I don't expect a reply either.

69% of all adult women who have drug and alcohol addictions were sexually abused as children.

Life-long predators have a minimum of 117 victims in their lifetimes, 90% of them go unreported.

There are over 3,000,000 registered sex offenders in the United States (Registered being the key word) and 300,000 we do not know where they are. (What a load of crap!)

Talk about fear-mongering. Notice all the pretty round numbers? There are less than 680,000 sex offenders in the US, so where they came up with the 3 million number is beyond me! Also the other crap that is on the flier is total crap as well. I'd like to see who did this so called "study" or where they got these bogus statistics from!

Re Fred Grimm's March 5 column, Lobbyist pushed laws that push outcasts into homelessness: As an associate professor at Lynn University in Boca Raton, my primary area of research is sex-crime-policy analysis. Recent research in Florida confirmed that a sex offender's proximity to schools and day care centers was unrelated to sexual recidivism.

Sex offenders who lived in close proximity to such facilities were not more likely to reoffend than those who lived farther away. Researchers from Minnesota also have reported that not one of 224 recidivistic sex offenses would have been prevented by a residential-restriction law.

Sex offenders do not molest children because they live near schools. They abuse when they are able to establish relationships with children and their families and misuse positions of familiarity, trust and authority. According to the Justice Department, 93 percent of sexually abused children are molested by family members, close friends or acquaintances. Children are most likely to be assaulted by people they know, not strangers lurking in schoolyards. Thus, residence restrictions do little to prevent the most common situations in which children are likely to be harmed.

Research shows that such restrictions greatly diminish housing availability and increase transience, homelessness and instability -- as evidenced by the situation under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. These laws interfere with effective tracking, monitoring and probation supervision. This undermines the very purpose of sex-offender registries. Research also shows a clear link between housing instability and increased criminal recidivism.

Laws that foster instability for criminal offenders simply do not serve the best interest of public safety.

However, 24-hour loitering zones are a feasible alternative to residence restrictions and are more likely to accomplish goals of public protection. Such a proposal is pending in the Florida Legislature. Some jurisdictions, such as Hillsborough County, elected not to enact municipal residence restrictions and instead created loitering zones. Instead of regulating only where sex offenders sleep at night, child-safety zones actually keep sex offenders from frequenting places where they can cultivate relationships with children during the day.

We all have a common objective -- to protect children and others from sexual violence. The crucial question is how best to accomplish this goal. As a parent, a woman, a taxpaying voter and a social worker who began her career in child-protective services, I advocate not for sex offenders but for public policies that are based upon scientific data. They are more likely to result in enhanced public safety and reduced sexual violence.

Residence restrictions, at best, promote a false sense of security for residents. At worst, they undermine sex-offender registration and interfere with effective management of sex offenders by decreasing stability and fostering risk factors known to facilitate recidivism -- thus increasing the likelihood that these offenders will resume a life of crime.

GRAND RAPIDS — That Thomas Pauli reached a point where had to "drop to his hands and knees and await death" on a frigid night should be a call to action for the community, said the Rev. Charlotte Ellison.

The Heartside Ministries pastor joined about 100 people in a candlelight vigil and memorial service Saturday for Pauli, 52, who froze to death Jan. 26. He had been denied admission to area shelters.

Pauli was a convicted sex offender, and it was illegal for missions operating close to schools to allow him to stay overnight.

The march, from Degage Ministries, 144 S. Division Ave., to the spot on the 600 block where Pauli died, was intended to be both a memorial service and a quiet way to urge lawmakers to rethink how such homeless people are treated, said the Rev. Jay Schrimpf of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, one of the organizers.

"We want to speak to the injustice of a law that would allow one of God's creatures to freeze to death," he said. "It's appalling that such a thing could happen."

In her homily during the short prayer service, Ellison said Pauli committed an act that was "rightly condemned," but also is one of the few deemed "beyond redemption."

She said he reached a point where he would rather die than seek shelter at hospital, jail, or even one of the unlocked vehicles in the lot where he was found.

Ellison said Pauli's death should be a signal to the community that it needs to either change the law or create a safe, alternate site for homeless people with similar backgrounds to stay.

Carrying candles and signs reading "Law over life" and "Out in the cold no more," marchers represented about a dozen churches and ministries and included homeless people who considered Pauli a friend.

"The man did his time, yet he kept being punished for it,' said Kathy Houser, who knew Pauli.

She said the shelters need a better system of finding places for people who can't legally stay overnight near schools. She said some groups will drive people to such shelters, and said Pauli either didn't ask for help that night or staffers weren't aware of what could be done.

Vigilantes who cost a Dundee couple a house because they wrongly thought one was a paedophile have been branded “the lowest of the low”.

The couple and their three grandchildren were a day away from moving into a new home in the Kirkton area of the city when the landlord and property agent received threatening phone calls.

Mark Taylor, of Bourne- mouth-based Taylor Housing, which owns the house, said yesterday that giving them the property was out of the question for their own safety.

He also confirmed it had been a case of mistaken identity. “We were processing this family at the beginning of the week when, unknown to each other, we and our agents began receiving threatening and abusive phone calls,” he said.

“They actually said they would kill them, set fire to the house and lynch them."

“They were pleased with the house and said it was the best they had seen but in the end, for their own safety, we had to deny them the tenancy.

“They were decent people. It’s just upset us all so much. Everyone seemed to have jumped on a rumour and to me that’s small-minded."

“It’s just an awful situation and I’ve offered them the next available house we have.”

He said: “There would have been children in that house and what damage would that do to their life chances to be exposed to behaviour like that? For people to do that, they can only be considered the lowest of the low.

“It’s the first time I’ve come across this during my time on the local authority and it only needs one person to start it and it could end in tragedy.”

“IF YOU DO MY SON LIKE YOU DO THOSE PREDATORS, I WILL EXPOSE EVERY CASE WHERE YOU GAVE A “TRUE” SEX OFFENDER A LENIENT SENTENCE.” - Mark Lunsford To The Clark County Ohio Prosecutor's Office

There is something about Mark Lunsford that smells more rotten than a bucket of chum that’s been sitting on a Florida beach for days. I’ve covered Mark Lunsford’s activities and glaringly paradoxical behavior before. I’ve watched as he blazed a trail of vengeance against everyone who ever has been or will be convicted of a sex offense after the brutal murder of his daughter 2005, save for his son Joshua.

Joshua Lunsford was charged in 2007 with two felony sex crimes involving a 14 year old female after being repeatedly warned by her parents to stay away. Joshua Lunsford was 18. He was allowed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor with no sex offender registration.

We’ll get to how he escaped the sex offender registry and Jessica’s Law, the laws Mark Lunsford so relentlessly pushes for in a moment.

Mark doesn’t particularly care for this website much or what I have to say about his activities and his hypocrisy. I don’t blame him. I have been threatened once already by the Jessica Marie Lunsford Foundation’s attorney, Mr. Gelman on behalf of Mark.

Mark and the Jessica Marie Lunsford Foundation’s attorney don’t like me exposing Mark’s “less sympathetic” side and I can’t say I blame them. Make no mistake, Mark is a highly vindictive man and will resort to just about anything if you get in his way or make known certain truth’s about him that might jeopardize contributions to his foundation - the one named after his daughter Jessica. After all, Mark has a new lifestyle to maintain. I have personally felt his and his brat pack of wolves “below the radar” wrath firsthand.

What happened to Jessica Lunsford was absolutely horrible, brutal, and heinous. No one could or would argue that and NO parent should have to live through such a tragedy. Jessica was a beautiful young girl with a smile that must have lit up every room she walked into and for that I do feel sorry for Mark Lunsford. But my sympathy and respect for him stops there.

I have watched as Mark has gone from a grieving father to a pseudo “celebrity” status. Through his daughter Jessica’s foundation, Mark rakes in enough money for him to have quit his job as a dirt truck driver and travel around the countryside, partying it up and riding an $80,000.00 custom built Harley Davidson Motorcycle. The motorcycle which was donated to his daughter’s Foundation was supposed to be auctioned off for charity, instead Mark liked it so much he kept it for himself.

Mark is also a member of the Survivng Parents Coalition. There are certain things the public has the right to know, especially if it involves a non-profit charitable foundation that collects donations from well intentioned citizens trying to make what they think is a difference regarding issues and/or causes they care about. People have the right to know where there money is going and how it is being spent.

Recently, Mark gave testimony at a Congressional Hearing on SORNA and the Adam Walsh Act. This happened on March 10, 2009 and can be viewed here. Mark is sporting his traditional ponytail, a black suit with a tie with printed pictures of Jessica on it. In the video, Mark is sitting to the right of Ernie Allen, lobbyist, attorney and President of the NCMEC.

I watched and I listened.

There was discussion about consensual acts/crimes and whether or not those convicted of such crimes should be required to register, you know, the people just like Mark’s son Joshua.

All across the board came a resounding “NO” that those types of offenses should NOT require a person to register - they aren’t the dangerous, predatory, violent types that parents, children and the public need fear. In other words, these weren’t the people lawmakers had in mind when crafting these laws.

There was talk of people who were in fact on the registry, tragically and needlessly placed on it, sometimes for life, for exactly those types of offenses, their lives forever destroyed, many of them children, teens, and even young adults... just like Joshua.

Mark Lunsford made crystal clear and stated on the record that he felt that it was OKAY if some people were put on the sex offender registry, even if they didn’t belong there, that it was a “small sacrifice” to make …”IF it saves just one child.”

Save his own son. Save himself.

It is OKAY with Mark to throw other people’s children under the bus, completely destroying so many once promising young lives, just not HIS child.

And he made damn sure that it didn’t happen to his son, even after he violated his probation sentence and had a restraining order placed against him.

How?

The same way other people get “justice”. With connections, power, money, and threats, or a combination thereof. Just ask Mark Foley, the disgraced former Senator that was (ironically) so instrumental in the passage of the Adam Walsh Act itself.

Mark was candid with those in attendance after the hearing ended. He freely told how he was able to keep his son off the sex offender registry even though, by law, he should be on it.

Mark contacted the Ohio Prosecutor’s Office and advised them that he would “expose every sex offense case where they gave a lenient sentence to a true sex offender if they treated his son like one of those predators.”

And so, his son avoided registration, his conviction is also no longer available for viewing on the Clark Co. Ohio website which I do find very troubling.- True, but not after I saved a copy, which can be seen here.

Let's be clear though, Joshua's sex crimes were consensual in nature and no young man or woman should be registering for situations such as these, and it could be argued that no person should be registered for any consensual/non-forcible offense that is not indicative of coercive or predatory behavior toward teens.

The hypocrisy of it all.

Clearly, Mark knows there is a difference between “TRUE” sex offenders (Mark’s own words) and people like his son Joshua. Still, he pushes for these laws without giving those in situations like his own son a voice. To me this is unconscionable. I honestly don’t know how the man sleeps at night knowing, KNOWING, that he has helped and is helping to destroy many young lives just like his son Joshua’s and make their lives a living hell.

As for the Ohio Prosecutor’s Office, if they have something to hide and are letting the dangerous ones off easy, that IS a problem and it SHOULD be exposed, not used as some sort of bargaining chip. Mark just might be bargaining away the life of a child he says he so urgently wants to save.

Whether he realizes it or not, Mr.Lunsford has hurt far more children and families than he has helped. I cannot believe that he does not realize this. If he really cared about protecting children he would listen to what Detective Robert Schilling has to say, and focus our limited resources and taxpayer money on those [sic] “ TRUE” dangerous and predatory offenders. Offenders like the man that killed Jessica - John Couey. A man a world apart from his son Joshua and others like him.

Joshua Lunsford is no different or any more special than any of the thousands of kids, teens, and young adults who made the same mistakes Joshua did. The only difference is that their parents lacked power, connections and money. They aren’t any more or less guilty than Joshua Lunsford is.

Because consensual acts ARE in fact registerable offenses, the Sex Offender Registry is and continues to be hopelessly watered down, filled with consensual sex “criminals”.

Save Mark’s son.

THIS is the reason that the dangerous ones, the John Couey’s of the world, slip through the cracks. That might be good enough for Mark Lunsford, but it’s not good enough for me.

Mr. Lunsford if you read this, I implore you to take a long look in the mirror and not follow the same path as John Walsh - blindly seeking vengeance through your “tears of rage”, mowing over the innocent and telling yourself that it is OKAY if it saves just ONE child. It’s NOT okay, and it won’t SAVE ANY children.

Open your mouth and your heart and do what you know is right, what no one else has the balls to do or say, do what is NEEDED to make that difference you so desperately seek, the change that has the best chance of saving just ONE child. Have the grace to give those convicted of consensual acts what you gave your son, a second chance.

Note: Calls to the Ohio Prosecutors Office were not immediately returned.

ATLANTA - Three years after adopting one of the nation's stiffest stances on sex offenders, Georgia lawmakers are rethinking some of the crackdown's toughest provisions.

After complaints from civil rights groups and round after round of costly court challenges, powerful Georgia lawmakers are looking to soften some of the very parts of the law that incited the greatest debate.

Changes to the 2006 law could allow some offenders to petition the legal system to get off the registry, allow others to volunteer at churches and clear the way for disabled and elderly offenders to be exempt of the strict residency requirements.

The revisions, which already have cleared the Senate, are aimed at addressing some of the most vocal critics who challenged the rules in court. They have won the support of sheriff's groups, defense attorneys and some of the sex offenders who so vocally criticized them.

"I think they start to create a rational law that can move in the direction of creating public safety," said _____, who was convicted of child pornography charges in 1999. "They are actually bringing this legislation back to its noble intent."

But the most stirring of changes still could face a backlash from the House lawmakers who supported the measure three years ago as a way to protect Georgia's children from the state's 16,000 sex offenders.

"I've said since the day we passed the bill that we knew that this was a pretty big change and there were some things we needed to revisit, but I'm not on board with all the changes," said House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (Email), the law's sponsor.- What is Mr. Keen back peddling now? I've never heard you say the above. Here is many of your quotes, which you made it clear what your intent was.

He wouldn't elaborate on what parts of the proposal concerned him, but he did say he would fight any changes that could cripple the law.

"I'm for anything that makes it easier to administer the rules, but I'm not in favor of anything that could weaken the overall purpose of the law."

The law, which supporters say is among the nation's toughest, was passed in 2006 at the urging of Republican leaders who vowed it would prevent the state from becoming a "safe haven" for Georgia's sex offenders.

Shortly after it took effect, civil rights groups challenged a provision that banned offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of just about anywhere children gather. They claimed it rendered vast areas of Georgia off-limits to offenders.

They also have targeted other portions of the law, with at least eight challenges that have been resolved or are pending in state and federal court.

"I want it every bit as harsh on the dangerous predators, but I don't want it so broad as to treat some people who aren't sexual predators like they are," Harp said.- I agree, but think about it, even many of the aspects of the law, even for dangerous predators, are unconstitutional. So the unconstitutional portions of the law, need to be repealed.

One change would allow "low risk offenders," such as those convicted of statutory rape, to petition the courts to get off the registry after completing their sentence. The law has been criticized by judges for treating the most egregious offenders, such as child molesters, the same as those convicted for having consensual sex with an underage partner.- Do you know what can get you labeled a child molester? This label doesn't mean a person had sex with or raped a child, someone could've exposed themselves to a child and nothing more, and that would get them this label. So not all child molesters are as dangerous as you portray here.

It also would clear the way for most sex offenders to volunteer in churches. Sex offenders who are elderly and disabled could ask the courts to be released from the residency requirements under the proposal. Both those issues are at the center of federal lawsuits.

"While I'm not sympathetic to these people, on the other side I can see the problems of rolling people on their death beds out into the street," Harp said.- Thank God, at least you have some humanity left! Plus, are you assuming all elderly who are sick are dangerous? Sounds like it, by your own words!

And it would allow the homeless to identify the place they sleep using a street address or other description after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled last year the law fails to tell homeless offenders how they can comply.

Another section would clarify parts of the measure that have put people convicted of kidnapping or falsely imprisoning a minor during other crimes on the sex offender registry. Instead, they would only be put on the registry if their crimes involved a sex offense.

A key portion also would address privacy advocates concerned about a requirement that sex offenders hand over their Internet passwords. Under the proposal, offenders would keep their passwords but still hand over their e-mail addresses and user names.

The proposal has earned the support of sheriff's groups, who say is crucial to help their deputies enforce the existing laws.

"By and large it addresses a lot of these pending cases and answers some of the concerns that were unanswered," said Terry Norris, executive vice president of the Georgia Sheriff's Association. "It's a great step forward."- I totally agree!

Democrats couldn't help but remind GOP leaders they raised concerns about the legality of the law earlier. State Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (Email), D-Decatur, said it was "unfortunate" that taxpayer dollars were spent to defend flawed law.- I have emailed this lady, and she has me as well, and she is very much opposed to a lot about these laws, she is one of the few who are rational and fair.

To _____, who was convicted of child pornography charges in 1999, the proposal would help blunt the law's unintended consequences.

"I don't argue with the intent of this legislation at all," said _____. "I want children and communities and families to be safe. What this bill does is begin to recognize what the true danger is and narrow the brush with which they paint sex offenders."